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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26606863">Second Best</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Wisdom/pseuds/Kate_Wisdom'>Kate_Wisdom</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Choking, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional pain, Extremely Dubious Consent, Fighting Kink, Grief/Mourning, Hatesex, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Rough Sex, Vampires, Victim Held Down</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:28:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,537</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26606863</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Wisdom/pseuds/Kate_Wisdom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike’s not coping very well in the aftermath of the Slayer’s death. He isn’t the only one.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Angel/Spike (BtVS)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Darkest Night 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Second Best</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancslove/gifts">ancslove</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Content warnings for violence, violent sex, and oblique references to depression, suicidal ideation, and canon character death.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>All things considered, Spike figured he wasn’t doing too badly. True, he’d found himself hanging about town like a bad smell, unable or bloody unwilling to leave the dance floor even though the music had long stopped playing. He’d tried to be of use, even so, as befitted a reformed Big Bad with a chip in his head. He’d moved into his own digs near the Sunnydale cemetery; he went out on patrol with the gang most nights and helped them keep the streets free of other monsters. On Sundays, he even took the Little Bit out to the ice cream parlour to get a double scoop of Rocky Road. </p><p>It wasn’t a fix, though. He still saw her everywhere. </p><p>Fair enough: it had taken more than a summer to get over Dru. It’d taken years, come to think of it. Who knew, maybe getting over Buffy would take longer than all the years he had left.</p><p>There was a quick fix for that. Fast or slow; a stake through the heart, or a slow wasting away in sunlight. There were worse remedies to life, or unlife, though he knew at the end of the day he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, because of Dawn.</p><p>Still, there were other fixes, less permanent in nature. Two of them came to mind when he saw Angel lounging against the entryway of the crypt, all good coat and bad hair and usual expression of constipated guilt.  </p><p>“How are you, Spike?”</p><p>“Look who’s back in town.” Funny, it had taken years to get over Angel, too. “Flying visit, or have you come to check I’m still collared? Not being a menace to society, eating out virgins for breakfast, that kind of thing?”</p><p>“Willow told me you still had your chip.” Angel’s brow furrowed even more deeply. “She also told me you helped them, in the end. She told me…” He looked away, and then back at Spike. “She told me about you and Buffy.”</p><p>Spike exhaled a breath he hadn’t needed to take. He felt old rage bubble up, bitter and dark. It tasted like his father’s screams had tasted as he ripped into the old man’s throat; like Drusilla’s traitorous kisses; like every vile thing Angel had ever made him do before the bastard got his soul back, and everything since.</p><p>“Didn’t believe it, did you? Had to come see for yourself? And why not. What could a girl like that see in something like me, eh?”</p><p>“No, that’s not it,” Angel started to say, as Spike grabbed hold of him furiously and threw him against the nearest wall. </p><p>The stone cracked, together with something inside Angel’s body. Sod it, Spike hadn’t cared much for the décor in here anyway.  </p><p>“Spike,” Angel said, as Spike started to pound into him with his fists. Buggering Mary, but the big poof wasn’t fighting back, and it made him even angrier. </p><p>“Fucking wanker. What did she ever see in <i>you</i>, you mean!”</p><p>Shaking with rage, Spike slammed his fist across Angel’s leading-man jawline. As Angel’s head snapped back, his eyes glazing briefly, Spike took the opportunity to say, “You couldn’t give her anything good, anything she actually needed. You just fucked her, and fucked her over. As long as she lived she wasn’t free of you. And now she’s dead, and all of it’s on you.”</p><p>Angel shook his head to clear it. “God damn it, William. Nothing’s ever your fault, is it?”</p><p>“Not my idea to eat my soul and turn me into this, now, were it?” Spike aimed an uppercut at Angel’s chin, and this time Angel caught his wrist. The old man’s grip was an iron bar, and his eyes were even harder.</p><p>“And you’ll never let me forget it?”</p><p>“Never,” Spike said, wrenching himself loose, and began to lay about in earnest. </p><p>Angel blocked his blows, parrying fast and slow, slow and fast, like it was Tai Chi, but the wanker still wasn’t counter-attacking. Spike needed to concentrate and totally didn’t need the distraction, but the words poured out of him anyway, hot and thick with bile. </p><p>“Same as you’ll never let me forget you were there first. First with Dru, first with Buffy. Fucked them, then fucked them <i>over</i>… Made it so I’d always be second place to you.”</p><p>Angel feinted left, ducked under Spike’s right hook, and then it was Spike’s turn to be slammed against the side of the crypt, only face-first. Angel slammed right up behind him, pinning his arms above his head and pinning Spike to the wall with his considerable weight. Spike jack-knifed violently, trying to kick himself free, but it was useless. Like his grip, the old man’s body was a steel pillar, and <i>something else</i> was even harder. </p><p>Well, well. Looks like some things didn’t change, even after you got your soul back.</p><p>“You fucked me too, after,” Spike mused, and rolled his hips again, except this time he wasn’t trying to get away. It had been a hundred years, give or take, but he'd never forgotten how it felt, Angelus beating him bloody and then using that fat prick to rip him a new one and wrecking him so completely he wouldn't walk right for days after.</p><p>Angel hesitated, and Spike slammed the back of his head into Angel’s nose. </p><p>Angel yelled, and let go. Spike swung around and flung himself at Angel’s throat, and finally the old man began to fight back. They grappled and crashed into furniture and shoved each other against the available surfaces in the crypt. This time, though, Spike wasn’t trying to hurt Angel, or <i>only</i> trying to hurt him, as became apparent when they smashed through Spike’s table onto the floor, landing with Spike on top: one arm across Angel’s throat, his turn to pin Angel down. </p><p>“So I did,” Angel panted. “I fucked Buffy, and I fucked you. Why, are you so desperate for seconds?”</p><p>Spike grinned. The rush of rage was still hot and blinding, but now it was something else - - as he began to choke out Angel in earnest, he could feel the traitorous bulge between the old man’s thighs.</p><p>“How about <i>my</i> sloppy seconds, Liam? I did your girl, and now she’s dead - - and I’m the closest thing you’ll ever have to fucking her again in this life.”</p><p>Angel roared, the violence of his inner monster swallowing up his human face. He bucked Spike off him, and flung Spike face-down onto Spike’s empty bed, and ripped Spike’s jeans off. </p><p>“Liar,” he muttered as he jerked his own jeans down. Spike glanced over his shoulder; up close, that huge, dripping cock was even bigger than Spike remembered. “She would never. She was too good for you.”</p><p>“But <i>you’re</i> not too good for me, are you?” Spike murmured, mush-mouthed, as Angel began to work himself into Spike’s body dry. It hurt like blazes, just as Spike remembered, and not just for Spike.</p><p>“You’re a worthless bastard,” Spike said, delightedly, through the haze of pain, Angel’s prick mercilessly splitting him in two. “You’re no better than me.”</p><p>“And you’re a soulless monster,” Angel said, his breaths coming in small gasps, fingers digging even more bruises into Spike’s flesh. “You’re less than worthless. You’re dead, you’re nothing, you don’t deserve anything good.” </p><p>“Fine. I don’t deserve it.” Spike rocked his arse back, forcing Angel in deeper, exulting in the sensation of something that wasn’t emptiness. The bright agony of Angel filling him up, obscene and marvellous, holding him down and hammering into him in a fast and dirty pace and huffing vulgarities into the nape of Spike’s neck. </p><p>Spike hissed back: “But if I’m nothing, so are you. Soul or no soul, you’re as dead as I am. How could anyone want - - how could anyone like <i>her</i> ever want - -“</p><p>And that was the question, wasn’t it. He’d lied, of course he had: Buffy would never stand for having anyone’s sloppy seconds, let alone <i>being</i> second to anything, or any one. She would never have agreed to fuck Spike in a million years. And Angel hadn’t, either, until he’d been provoked into it by the spectre of the soulless thing he’d been when he’d sired Spike a hundred and twenty years ago. </p><p>Buffy would never have loved him. And as for Angel …</p><p>“I don’t know,” Angel said. There was a catch in his voice, and his hips stuttered and slowed. “I don’t know.” </p><p>Spike looked around again, startled. His sire was wearing his human face once more, but its pained grimace made it look just as twisted as the monster’s had been. </p><p>A fast or slow death. A stake through the heart, or a slow wasting away in sunlight. She was gone, and there were worse remedies to life, or unlife, for those she’d left behind. </p><p>If he had his druthers, Spike would have gone for the first, would have done it fast: rip off the sticking plaster, and then peace and quiet at last. But as Angel picked up the pace again, and began to fuck him with something that might, in another person, have been gentleness, Spike knew he’d have to settle for second best after all. </p><p>It looked like they would both have to.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>All my thanks to K. for the lightning-fast beta.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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